


Release of the Witch (RERELEASED)

by FloingMachines



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/F, General tomfoolery, Please don't click out immediately and give this a chance, Time Travel, Told from a first person POV, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-01-27 22:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloingMachines/pseuds/FloingMachines
Summary: Travis didn't want to move from California to Salem, Maine to inherit his dead uncle's house, much less did he want to be haunted by the spirit of a restless witch, but sometimes things just don't work out. Travis finds himself haunted by the ghost of a witch killed during the town's witch trials and soon realizes that he is the only one who can help her.There's more than the witches, after all.**This is told from the first person narrative of an OC, but it is F+TM centered.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So ROTW is back, exactly two years since it was originally written. It is better than ever and I'm much happier with it. This is going to be posted on my Tumblr and Wattpad as well.  
> Yes, I am the original author and I am within my bounds.  
> Thanks to everyone who is reading

            Salem, Maine was a weird place. In my oh-so humble opinion, anywhere on the East Coast was a weird place, at least that was what I had thought before I moved here. My opinion still hasn’t changed if I’m being perfectly honest. If anything the East Coast became even weirder once I moved here.

            We inherited the house in Salem after my dad’s uncle committed suicide with nearly no notice. I thought it was a morbid way to inherit house, but I kept my mouth shut when my dad insisted we had to go over to the house to clean it up. I don’t think my parents had any intention of staying on the East Coast for long (winter wasn’t really _our_ thing), but here I still am.

            Apparently my dad’s side of the family started in the town of Salem, but the history is so muddled that it’s extremely difficult to trace anything back before the 1800s. We could trace our story back to what was my great-great-great-great aunt I believe, but for some reason we couldn’t find any substantial information on this mystery aunt and we couldn’t find any information from before or anything specific after her either.

            The easiest assumption we could make was shitty record keeping because we know my dad’s side started before my great-great-great-great aunt or grandmother or whatever relative she would’ve technically been to me. I think we willfully ignored how _god damn_ weird this was.

            We drove cross-country from California for this bullshit. I made that thought extremely clear, I never missed a moment to tell my parents how ridiculous I thought this all was. The drive itself was fine, the country has plenty of fine tourist traps on the major highways and it has plenty of mom and pop diners too. I’ve had enough pancakes to last me a year I think.

            I had an uneasy feeling about this whole situation since we left California. I was being paranoid or I was being a real jerk about it, that’s what I kept telling myself, but it felt like there was an evil aura hanging around the closer I got to Maine. It was also probably because I thought that the ghost of my great-uncle was going to haunt the hell out of this house.

            I was right about haunting the hell out of the house, but it wouldn’t be my late great-uncle doing the haunting.

            “Salem has all this wonderful history!” My mom said somewhere when we were driving through one of the Dakotas. “This book is fascinating, you should read it Travis!”

            “Uh huh.” I was sitting with my legs slung across the backseat in a most definitely dangerous fashion. I was onto my third or fourth podcast and I wasn’t really interested in talking to my mom about the town of Salem.

            “It’s got a much richer history than where we came from.” My mom insisted and my dad uttered a noise that sounded like he agreed with her.

            “That’s cool.” I said, not looking up from my phone.

            “You could try to be more positive about this.” My mom said.

            “Sure I could.” I said. “Except we just moved away from where I’ve lived all my life and now I get to go somewhere new where I know no one and I get to live in a creepy suicide house.”

            “Travis!” My parents both said at the same time and I rolled my eyes.

            “Come on you can’t think I’m happy about this.” I responded.

            “I expected that you’d at least try to be optimistic about this.” My mom said and I could hear the anger rising in her voice.

            “Uh huh.” I rolled my eyes again.

            “You’ll see once we get there, Travis,” My dad began to lecture. “This will be good for you.”

            “Alright.”

            The conversation was over after that; none of us were really in a talking mood. I didn’t really care about that anyways, I mostly just wanted to think about life back home and better times.

            I had this sneaking suspicion what was ahead would not be better times.

            The United States Mid-West was a disaster full of corn and “Hell is Real” signs. It seemed like the same company had built the doomsday prophecy billboards because the same number was at the bottom of every crazy ass billboard.

            We pulled over for gas in Minnesota and when my parents went into the Stop-And-Shop I pulled out my cell phone and called the number I had found on the bottom of the billboards.

            _855-FOR-TRUTH_

            “This is Gospel Billboards, how can I help you?” A cheery voice sounded on the other end of the line.

            “Yes, I was wondering if you could tell me my prophecy.” I was trying not to laugh as I spoke.

            “Yes ah….” Suddenly the cheery lady cut off and the line was replaced with blaring static. I was about to end the call when I heard a terrifying voice in the static.

            _LET THE SPECTRUM INNNNNNNNNN_

            I screamed and hit the end call button. My hands were shaking and I threw my phone across the backseat and looked at it suspiciously. This with either a sick joke or I was just imagining it.

            I picked my phone up and restarted it just to be sure that if there were an evil demon haunting my phone it would be gone with a simple reset.

            When I heard the evil hiss in the static, I felt my blood run cold. I handled my phone carefully when I picked it back up and only after we left the gas station a few minutes later did I plug my earbuds back in to start listening to music again.

            “So apparently witch trials happened in this town.” My mom said, just trying to fill the silence as we drove through western Pennsylvania.

            “Really?”

            “Yeah, although most of the records have been destroyed.” My mom said. “What a bummer, I would’ve liked to know more about that.”

            “Ah yes, dead witches that’s very fascinating.” I said. “ _Fake_ dead witches, might I add?”

            “It is very fascinating!”

            We were driving through New Hampshire now and I became more and more uneasy with every mile traveled. I anxious drummed my fingers against the door, I played Tetris on my phone, but mostly I just started out the window waiting for something that I couldn’t quite place.

            We crossed the border into Maine and my hair was standing on end because I just _knew_ that something was wrong. I knew something was wrong when we passed the town border into Salem and as I looked out the window, people made the sign of the cross.

            My stomach tied itself into knots as I watched the people stand on street corners as we drove past. There was something we didn’t know about, we were getting ourselves into something _much bigger_ than a dead family member.

            We drove down Ceremonials Drive and saw the little house at the end of the road. For a house sitting alone for a few months, it looked immaculate. There was something vaguely wrong with everything here and I wanted to say something, but I knew my parents didn’t want to hear it.

            My dad put the car into park and we walked towards the front door. My dad unlocked it and walked in, my mom followed, and then I stepped over the threshold of the house.

            The second my foot touched the hard wood floors on the inside of the house my ears rang with the same ghostly voice that I had heard on the phone back in South Dakota.

            _TRAVISSSSSSS…_

I froze in my tracks and looked around wildly as the voice hissed my name.

            _IT IS TIME…_

            I did the only rational thing I could think to do – I turned around and ran like hell out of the house.

           


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters go up on Wednesdays!  
> (life got in the way this week, but i promise regular updates are a thing)

            “Stop being ridiculous!” Twenty minutes later, my parents were trying to drag me back into the house. I had bolted up Ceremonials Drive in a desperate attempt to get away from the evil house and I’m sure I looked like one of those cats that just spooks for no reason.

            “Someone said my name!” I said as I cautiously approached the threshold again. “I’d swear on this!”  
            “Come on, Travis. You’re just imagining this.”

            I crossed the threshold without incident this time and I looked around the inside of the house warily as I looked around. There was a small entryway that had two rooms coming off the entryway on either side. Directly in front of me was a flight of stairs leading upstairs. To my left was a mirror that was immaculately clean and I squinted at it and was surprised to see my reflection in it. As I surveyed the entryway I realized that there was not a speck of dust anywhere and if my parents thought this was odd, they didn’t say anything.

            “See, it’s not haunted,” I followed my mom into the room on the left of the entryway and looked around suspiciously. This room seemed to be a dead end. “There’s a piano in here.”

            My mom bent over the upright piano. The piano was also immaculate, like the mirror. It was made from a lighter wood (if I had to guess I would’ve guessed that it was oak) and it sat under a window with sheer white curtains. My mom’s index finger lowered itself to the ivory key and the sound of the note she played echoed in the room.

            _TRAVISSSS_

            The voice resonated with the note now and I clapped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut. It was this _British_ lady talking to me and I whirled around again as I slowly removed my hands from my ears.

            “Stop fooling around.” My dad lightly cuffed the back of my head with his hand. “There’s nothing here.”

            Both of my parents left the room without me, but I wandered over the piano. I ran my right hand over the lid of the upright gently as though to not disturb the spirit inside of the piano, _if_ the spirit was in fact inside the piano. I ghosted my fingers over the keys, but didn’t press them. There was no voice. I was curious so I dug my fingers under the lip of the lid and pulled up.

            There was a cracking sound from decades of not being used, but I pried the lid up with the wood intact. When I peered in I found that the insides were just as clean as the outside was. Under the lid of the piano itself, there was an engraving. There was an oval brass plaque that was embedded in the wood, and there were two ornate letters embossed into the brass.

            _I.S._

            When I touched the plaque, nothing happened. It was cold and smooth just like I would expect metal to be and my fingers left smudges on it. I was about the shut the lid and move on when I noticed something odd. The plaque was clean again, the smudge cleared away. I pressed my thumb over the metal and left my thumbprint again and I watched it disappear suddenly like someone was shaking an etch-a-sketch.

            “What the…” I whispered. I did it again and it disappeared, exactly the same way. “Shit, that’s weird.”

            I shut the lid slowly and let it fall against the piano’s frame softly so that it wouldn’t clatter. This house was weird and definitely haunted and I was starting to think it wasn’t by my dead great-uncle. Hell, I didn’t even know my dead great-uncle and I don’t even know if he knew my name. I glanced around the bare room again before hurrying into the adjacent room.

            The room across the hall was two things: empty and not a dead end. It went into the kitchen (which sorely needed some remodeling). The only thing that looked out of place in the kitchen was a kettle, which was pewter and shining like it had just been cast. I walked past it in a hurry; I was in no mood to disturb more spirit.

            What was supposedly the living room was to the left back of the kitchen. It was also empty. Big bay windows opened up the backyard, which was an open expanse of hills and fields of tall grass that cleared had not been mowed in a few years. I got close to the window and when I looked out I saw a house on the hill and it took me by surprise. I blinked quickly and when I looked back out, all I could see was rolling hills.

            I turned around, more confused than I was before and walked back into the kitchen and into the entryway. I walked up the stairs and looked up and down the narrow hallway. There was a big room on one end of the hallway and a closet on the other end. At the top of the stairs was a bathroom and to the left and right of the stairs were bedrooms.

            There was a trapdoor to a supposed attic on the ceiling and I walked over to the closet. When I tried to open it, it was locked.

            “That figures.” I said angrily and looked into the bedroom closest to the closet, which was also empty.

            It seemed that the only room that wasn’t empty was the one front room, which I thought was a good thing. I walked back outside to meet my parents at the moving truck and I did my best to forget the weird voices and the clean piano.

            I helped my parents carry the boxes in and we stacked them in the two front rooms. Our couch and TV was carried into the living room behind the kitchen and the mattresses were taken upstairs to their respective bedrooms. We would build the frames this weekend and start to reassemble our possessions.

            I sat in my room and looked out on the front lawn. The town of Salem was glinting in the distance and I leaned on the windowsill. I didn’t know if I even _wanted_ to know what was happening here, but from the way things were going, I didn’t think I had a choice.

            “Travis!” My dad yelled. “We’re leaving for dinner in five minutes!”

            I picked up my jacket from the floor and slung it over my shoulders.

            “Okay!” I called back and then I looked around. My room was filled with boxes and it looked normal for the most part right now.

            “My name is Travis.” I said quietly. “I know you know that, but I thought I should introduce myself. I don’t want any trouble.” There was silence in my room and I took a deep breath. “Thanks for the piano, though.”

            _TRAVISSSSS_

            The wind blowing outside hissed my name again and I shrugged.

            “Good evening to you too.”

           


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Next update is next Wednesday.

            When I stepped out of the shower there were words written on the steamy mirror.

            _GOOD EVENING TRAVIS_

            “Thanks.” I said, drying myself off with a towel. “This doesn’t have to be weird, you know.”

            There was no response so I put on pants and went back into my room. Maine was already starting to get cold in late August so I dug through one of the boxes and pulled out a sweatshirt. The room was empty and silent when I sat down on my mattress and opened my laptop.

            I opened my browser and searched “Salem, Maine”. The tourist site came up and the Wikipedia page. I forwent the tourist website and clicked on Wikipedia instead. I had to start somewhere.

            The page was sparse, but it mentioned something about the witch trials like my mom had in the car. There was no information beyond a basic ‘they happened’, but I thought that was where I should start. Whoever was haunting my house was probably a casualty of the witch trials, that much I could deduce. It definitely wasn’t my uncle that was for sure.

            I closed my computer and then lay back on the bed and stared at the plaster ceiling. The white plaster was peeling and I looked at some of the pieces that were starting to curl like flowers from the ceiling.

            I think I was lucky that I escaped without any weird dreams that night.

            The next day my mom and I went down to the local high school and I registered for classes and filled out some basic forms.

            “The last name…Summers?” The librarian peered over her glasses as she looked at some of the paperwork.

            “Yes Ma’am.” I answered.

            “God bless you for moving back here.” She stamped the form with the date.

            “Excuse me?” I looked around and my mom was nowhere to be found.

            “God bless you for moving here with that last name, hun.”

            “Thanks…I guess?”

            “The last person to move here with the last name Summers hung himself on the gallows in the center of town.” She said.

            “Yeah, I know. That was my great-uncle.” I answered, feeling awkward already.

            “Watch out for the red haired demon, then.” She laughed and I took a step back, looking at her with what I could only guess was fear and disgust.

            “I’ll watch out for the…red haired demon.” I said and hurried out of the school’s library.

            Salem, Maine was a goddamn strange place. I had been here for all of two days and everything just seemed like it was wrong. The town itself felt like it shouldn’t be here, like it was tied together with malevolent energy. Walking into the center of the main town with my mom felt like we were walking on a tightrope made of delicately balanced forces that might snap at any moment.

            Call me crazy, but I thought that my home was _those_ forces.

            The gallows were literally in the middle of town. They were huge and imposing and the tall posts looked like long claws that wanted to reach down and pluck me off the ground. People walked around them like they were a parked car rather than an instrument of death, but I kept a healthy distance as I walked with my mom to the grocery store.

            I think the weirdest thing was that no one noticed that there was something wrong with the town. My parents thought it was great, charming even. The people here seemed to go about their everyday lives without a care, although every thing in this town screamed that something was wrong.

            Dear god I hoped my parents were going to move back to California in a year because I don’t think that I could take living here for any longer.

            We drove back to my house from the high school and all I felt was anxious. The house creeped me out specifically, it was like I couldn’t sit still. There was this energy in the air and it felt like it crackled every time I walked into the house and tried to do anything.

            Goddamn ghost.

            “You should try and get a job while you’re here.” My mom suggested as we drove back.

            “I don’t think anyone would hire me.”

            “Why?”

            “It seems like a small town, every teenager’s already got jobs lined up.”

            “I guess you’re right.”

            I was glad that answer satisfied her.

            I went upstairs to my room to keep unpacking when we got home and my mom began to cook something downstairs. I was hopeful everything was how I had left it there, but I think I need a reality check because there were huge red letters written on my wall.

            _I DIDN’T KILL YOUR GREAT-UNCLE_

            “Great!” I hissed. “That’s fantastic, I don’t care!” I shook my head angrily. “Whose blood is that anyways?”

            The blood disappeared the same way the smudge on the piano plaque did and it was replaced with:

            _IT’S PAINT_

            “Okay well that makes me feel better.” I sat down, cross-legged in front of the painted wall. “Are you the red-haired demon?”

           _I’M A WITCH, NOT A DEMON_

            “Well that explains a lot.” I mumbled.

            _WHAT?_

            “Nothing.” I shook my head. “Can you tell me who you are or at least who you were?”

            _IT’S TOO SOON YOU HAVE TO FIGURE THAT OUT YOURSELF_

            “What do you want with me?”

            _IT’S TOO SOON TO TELL YOU_

            “Gee that’s comforting.”

            _GOOD LUCK TRAVIS_

            “Thanks?”

            There was no response, but the last correspondence was wiped from the wall. I didn’t know what to make of that.

            This continued on for two more weeks until I was ready to start school. Almost every day I’d get some sort of message from the red-haired witch/ghost lady in my house. Some of them were cryptic and made no sense (I saw quite a few “Let the Spectrum In”s and I still had yet to decipher the meaning of that) and some of them just told me that my parents had made coffee.

            The night before I was meant to start school, I stepped out of the shower and toweled off like I did every night. Most nights the mirror was empty, but tonight there was a short sentence written.

            _GOOD LUCK TOMORROW_

            “Is this in good will or because something bad will happen?” I asked as I spit my toothpaste into the sink.

            _GOOD WILL_

            “Thanks crazy witch lady. Hope you have a nice day doing whatever you do.”

            It’s like this strangeness had become my new normal, I was having semi-regular conversations with a ghost like it was nothing. The wind hissing my name and other ominous phrases was just normal for me and I was glad because finally my parents didn’t think I was losing it.

            I thought I was losing it a little bit, but I just decided that I was going to roll with it for now. What could go wrong?

           


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your support!  
> Updates are every Wednesday :)

            _THAT BOW TIE ISN’T STRAIGHT_

            “Really?” I asked, tugging on it again in the bathroom mirror as writing appeared and disappeared in soap in front of me. “I think it’s fine.”

            _YOUR HAIR IS MESSY TOO_

            “That’s the style these days.”

            _I KNOW THE STYLE THESE DAYS AND THAT IS NOT IT_

            “I beg to differ.” As I looked in the mirror I realized that the witch was right, my black hair was entirely unruly and it was falling into my face. I sighed dejectedly. “Maybe you’re right.”

            My hands were pushed out of the way by a mysterious wind and I watched in the mirror as my hair was straightened out in a much more respectable manner and my bow tie was retied and sat neatly against my collarbone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my toothbrush levitating and then it went hurling towards my face.

            I jumped out of the way at the last minute.

            “We talked about this! Don’t throw things at my face!” I said, picking my toothbrush off the floor.

            The levitating objects were definitely a development, although I almost lost an eye the first time it happened. I was looking for my razor in one of the boxes and suddenly it went whizzing by my head from a box from across the room.

            _HYGIENE IS IMPORTANT_

            “I’m not arguing with you.” I said, throwing my toothbrush in the trash. “But stop throwing stuff at me, I’m not particularly coordinated. Also we don’t have any other toothbrushes now, so thanks for making me waste that.”

            _THERE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN A PROBLEM IF YOU CAUGHT IT_

            “No, there wouldn’t have.”

            I walked into my parent’s room to borrow my dad’s toothbrush. As I walked in I could feel her presence following me. It was a weird feeling, it felt like there was always someone standing beside me and watching me. I was still waking up out of deep sleep with the feeling that someone was touching my head or my shoulders, but I had no way of knowing if that was paranoia or if the ghost was actually messing with me.

            “Are you messing with me in my sleep?” I asked as I spit toothpaste into the sink. There was no answer. “Let me guess, I have to figure that out for myself.” I rolled my eyes as I said it.

            _I CAN’T GIVE YOU THE ANSWERS_

            “Yeah, you haven’t given me any to begin with.” I muttered as I walked into my room.

            There was a huge smiling face drawn in red paint that had begun to drip on my walls. Without thinking I let out a shriek and tried to back out of the room before I realized that it was probably fine.

            “That is fucking terrifying!” I hissed through clenched teeth and the face disappeared. “Thank you.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and grabbed my sneakers off the floor.

            _GOOD SENTIMENTS_

            “Thanks?” I asked and stood up. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

            _SEE YOU LATER, TRAVIS_

            “I still think it would be less awkward if I knew your name.” There was no response on the wall so I shrugged and walked downstairs to grab my backpack and leave for school.    

            The ride to school was mostly uneventful. I was disinterested with my mom’s small talk, I really just wanted to go to school and leave.

            “You could try and be optimistic about this.” My mom said.

            “I am, I just want to get through school and be done with it.”

            “Moving isn’t the end of the world.” We hit traffic in front of the school.

            “Maybe not to you.”

            “Don’t forget, you have to go to the guidance office first.” My mom said as she put the car into park in front of the school.

            “I won’t.”

            I went to get out of the car, but she grabbed my arm before I got out.

            “Good luck.” She smiled warmly.

            “Thanks.” I shrugged out of her grasp and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the building.

            I hate kids my age. Everything about teenagers is awful, they’re rude and they’re self-centered among other things. What I wanted was to get through this school year talking to the least amount of people as possible so I could just go home – back to California.

            Ceremonials Drive was not home, that was for sure. Salem, Maine was not home and the East Coast was not my home. No, I belonged on the West Coast with sunshine and skateboards and much better food. I walked through the doors of the school and all I could think about was how I didn’t belong here.

            Kids were making a wide circle around me, like they were afraid to touch me. I looked at them warily and I watched them quickly attempt to avert their eyes when I looked towards them. I put my earbuds in and lowered my head, only looking slightly in front of me.

            The guidance office was blissfully empty on the first day of school and I walked up to the front desk with the office secretary.

            She didn’t look up when I came up to the counter so I tried to clear my throat as subtly as possible.         

            “Can I help you?” She asked. Her hair was dyed the color of a bad paint job on a fire engine and her lips were the same shade.

            “I need to get my schedule.” I said, trying to make my voice sound steady.

            She didn’t look up at me, but instead turned to her computer. “What’s your name?” By the way she spoke, it was clear that she would rather be anywhere but here and for a moment I sympathized with her.

            “Travis Summers.”

            She looked up at me for the first time and squinted curiously.

            “Come again?”

            “My name is Travis Summers.”

            She quickly typed my name into the computer and then frowned again, except this time it was a little more defined.

            “You live on…Ceremonials Drive?”

            “Yeah.”

            “This is a mistake, you aren’t supposed to be here.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “There has to be a mistake.”

            “There’s no mistake, miss.”

            She pursed her lips and typed my name in again.

            “No, it seems there’s not.” She sighed. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”

            “Yes, I am.”

            She clicked something on the computer and the ancient printer behind her shuddered to life. It spat out a few pieces of paper and she handed them to me. Her wrinkly hands were clearly shaking when she handed me the papers.

            “Thanks.” I said, but she didn’t respond so I walked out into the hallway.

            My first class was biology and I wandered around for a while until I figured out that it was in one of the upstairs hallways. I was close to being late and all the seats in the class for full; save for one stool next to a guy with electric pink hair who seemed to be typing on his phone.

            I walked over the dropped my bag on the floor before sitting on the stool.

            “Hey.” He said without looking up.

            “Hey.”

            He looked up when I responded and the first thing I noticed was that he had striking blue eyes, they were bright and clear and he looked at my curiously.

            “I don’t know you.” He stated bluntly.

            “And I don’t know you.”

            “I’m Tom.” He stuck out his hand and I took it and we shook. “A lot of people call me Rusty.”

            “I’m Travis.” I responded. “Why do people call you Rusty?”

            “My car’s a crapbag, but it needs to fit a harp.”

            “That’s cool.”

            He raised his eyebrows when I said it was cool.

            “That sentence usually ends with ‘gay’.” He laughed. “You moved into the witch house, right?”  
            “Yeah…I think so.” I laughed nervously with him.

            “Man, I haven’t been back there since I fell into the ruins.”

            “What?”

            “The ruins? Behind the house?”

            “There are ruins?”

            “Yeah man, the remnants of another house behind the witch house.”

            _That explains the phantom house I saw on the first day_. “I’ll have to look into that.”

            “No man,” He said, still laughing. “No you don’t.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this written for a while, but never got around to posting it.  
> Whoops.

            “You should hang out with my friends and I at lunch.” Rusty suggested as he absently doodled in his notebook.

            “I think I’ll take you up on that.” I answered, avoiding my teacher’s gaze.

            Walking through the hallways felt like I was drifting through purgatory. People were actively avoiding me like I carried the plague and I felt like I was a walking black cloud. The next two classes felt the same too, my teachers wouldn’t look me in the eyes when they called role.

            “You’re still down for sitting with us?” I looked over and Rusty had jogged over next to me with a goofy smile on his face.

            “Of course!” I smiled back. “Where else would I sit?”

            “I don’t know, I was just concerned you found someone cooler.”

            “No way!”

            I sat down at the table with Rusty and he introduced me to his friends Chris and Rob. The cafeteria was a large and loud room with floor to ceiling windows lining one wall and looking out onto the student parking lot. I felt happy for the first time in a while, I liked Rusty and Tom and Rob and I felt like things might be finally going my way.

            “Look!” I glanced over at Rob who had electric blue hair. He had stuck two straws in the corners of his mouth and smiled. “I’m a walrus!”

            I laughed and took two straws out of the center of the table and did the same and soon Rusty and Rob put the straws in their mouths too.

            “Should I dye my hair some funny color?” Chris asked, his words garbled by the straws.

            “You should and so should Travis!” Rusty said. “Black and brown hair is out.”

            I smoothed out my hair nervously. “I like the color that it is.”

            The three of them were laughing and I was laughing too until suddenly everything felt like it was underwater and in slow motion. I swung my head from side to side, trying to clear my thoughts when I saw the window.

            Behind the window was a large figure of a woman, she was partially transparent and I knew from the way everyone else was acting that no one could see her. She was wearing a long white dress that clung to her figure and her hair was the color of fire. My breath was taken away as I realized exactly who I was looking at.

            I was looking at the witch who was haunting my house.

            She raised her hands slowly, draped in the white fabric, and I saw her draw them back and as though I was watching a car crash I saw her extend forward with both hands.

            I snapped back into real time.

            “Get down!” I screamed, covering the back of my neck with my hands.

            The window exploded into millions of tiny fragments that blew all across the cafeteria and when I looked up there was nothing but a gaping hole where the glass once was. I breath was coming out in heaving gasps as I looked around wildly.

            There were sirens blaring in the distance and Rusty, Chris, and Rob looked at me with a mix of shock and horror.

            “How…” Rusty shook his head, trying to grapple with the situation. “How did you…how did you know?”

            “The witch is here,” I whispered, standing up suddenly. “Fuck!”

            “Dude are you okay?” Rusty stood up at the table.

            “There’s a witch and she’s haunting me!” I whispered frantically. “She broke the window and I know that sounds insane, but I saw her she pushed the window she was this gigantic apparition.”

            The three of them looked at me and I tried to find the words to explain what was happening. I was standing alone in a sea of glass and terrified teenagers and I held my hands on my head as I looked around in the wreckage.

            “Who did this?”

            Someone who I could only assume was the principal stormed in and what was I supposed to do?

            “What happened here?”

            There was a flurry of yelling and I slowly sat back down at the table, unsure of what was happening.

            “We won’t say a thing.” Chris whispered.

            “You didn’t do it right?” Rob asked.

            “No! I just…I saw her!”

            Rusty looked at me and I could see fear in his eyes. “So you saw an apparition of the witch?”

            “She just…appeared. I’ve never seen her before.”

            “We’ll help you get to the bottom of this,” The four of us glanced at the teachers and officials inspecting the window. “We’ll help you stop whatever this is from happening again.”

            They came to the conclusion that no one person could have broken the window, but I was still shaken up over the incident. What else was she capable of? Did she want to hurt me?

            I took the bus home and when I walked down Ceremonials Drive I saw that both of my parents cars were gone. I unlocked the front door, dropped my bag done, and decided that I had enough of this bullshit.

            “What the fucking hell?” I yelled into the air. “What the fuck! You could’ve killed someone!” I stormed around the house, waiting for an answer. “You owe me a goddamn explanation!”

            There was silence and I let myself out the back door and I walked up the hill in the field. The wind was blowing my hair around and I had my hands balled up into fists in my pockets. Out in the distance I could see something and I squinted.

            I couldn’t make out what it was so I began to jog down the hill and into the distance. I could vaguely remember Rusty saying something about ruins and I could see the piles of rocks and bricks, as I got closer.

            I could clearly see where the foundation of the house had been and it looked as though it had burned down a long time ago. I walked into the center of the burned out square and looked around, where had Rusty fallen in?

            I took another step and my leg fell through the ground and I realized it was the remnant of a floor. I cautiously pulled my leg out and stripped back some of the wood surrounding the hole and saw a small basement.

            Against my better judgment, I slid through the hole and into the basement. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and looked around and for a moment I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I noticed a little box on the floor.

            I knelt down and found that it was just as clean as the piano and everything else in the house. I picked up the box, but I didn’t open it and I lifted it up through the hole and then scrambled to get through it myself.

            I picked up the box and I walked back to the house and brought it straight up to my room. I pried up a floorboard underneath my mattress and slid the box under the boards before walking back downstairs. I glanced in the mirror by the front door to fix my hair and for a moment I didn’t realize that anything was wrong, but then I realized there wasn’t a reflection.

            “What?” I touched the mirror gently with my fingers and I found that they pressed into a jello-like surface.

            My whole hand slid through and I was trying not to laugh until I felt a cold hand grab mine through the mirror. I screamed and then I was yanked through the mirror.

            I fell flat on my face on a floor that looked kind of like the one in the house and what I looked up I saw the redheaded witch sitting in a chair.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


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